AUNTIE FLO Groove Podcast 12

Brian d’Souza aka Auntie Flo first came to the attention of a wider audience last year with his track „Oh My Days“, an infectious blend of synthesizer stabs, vocal samples and funky percussion which became equally popular among house DJs as well as UK bass heads. This year, the Scottish producer with Goan roots released his debut album Future Rhythm Machine, a record which our reviewer described as „advanced pop music that successfully combines post-dubstep, kwaito and Chicago house“. Not surprisingly, d’Souza cites Ricardo Villalobos, Four Tet, Fela Kuti and Kode9 among the musicians that influenced him the most. With his contribution to our podcast series he once again succeeds in weaving all these different stylistic threads into a colourful and matching ensemble, resulting in a mix that is perfectly suited for the last days of summer.

How did you choose the tracks for the mix? Did you have a certain concept in mind?

I call this mix ‚Child of the Sun‘ after the Piranhahead track I used. The mix is a collection of music I am feeling at the moment, mostly new vinyl I bought in the past week, some new promos I just got sent or older tracks which I’ve just discovered. As I had just come back from playing Stop Making Sense, I had Croatia in my mind, so the mix of warm, sunny and deep in equal measure! It should be perfect for getting ready to party in the sun.

We recently booked Awesome Tapes from Africa to play our Highlife night in Glasgow, so I have been exploring the music on the blog in great depth and wanted to start the mix with a track from there. I had the whole thing mapped out when I got sent the new Daphni album and Andy from Huntleys & Palmers sent me the Soft Rocks track, so I had to start again to include those tracks! I was also happy to include the first play of my new track ‚Sun Ritual‘, which was signed to Kompakt this week and due for release in December.

I find putting together recorded mixes incredibly difficult – they have to be able to ‚flow‘ but that’s tricky as you have no live audience in the studio. I try and keep the tracks in the mix at all times and as a DJ make sure I’m as ‚busy‘ for as much of the hour as possible – i like to find blends of tracks that work perfectly together whilst also chopping and changing between tempos and genres. So the mix starts off slow, goes in deep, becomes more banging and ends in a weird tribally afro haze.

Where and how did you record the mix?

I recorded it at home on 1210’s and my old Pioneer DJM 500 mixer, it’s mostly vinyl with Traktor for the unreleased stuff. It took me a week to do, from sourcing a huge amount of new music to putting together the track list and then recording the final mix.

You will be playing at Dimensions Festival in Croatia next – will this be a live show or a DJ set? What are your expectations for the festival?

It’s a DJ set and I can’t wait. After a great first experience of Croatia at Stop Making Sense, I can’t wait to return! We’ve got a pretty big crew coming out and a couple of friends celebrating birthdays. It’s going to be a riot!